ABSTRACT
Beginning in the 1950s, Japanese companies and the national government conducted decades of R&D with a focus on commercial applications. Japanese global conglomerates entered the PV industry as early as those in the US and found a sequence of profitable niche markets—particularly consumer electronics—in which to sell PV. As niche markets became saturated, the government created a rooftop subsidy program with a variety of innovative features including up-front rebates and a ten-year declining rebate schedule. During that program from 1994 to 2005 over 200,000 households installed PV systems and Japanese PV producers scaled up to meet that demand. The leading Japanese firm, Sharp, increased production scale by a factor of 200 and by the mid-2000s attained the highest market share any company has had since the early days of the industry. Soon after that, Sharp’s growth stalled. German and later Chinese firms produced at much higher volumes. Japan lost its lead due to not anticipating the emergence of the German market, focusing on high quality rather than low cost production, reluctance to enter into long-term contracts for silicon feedstock, reallocating production investment to thin film PV, and relinquishing technology development leadership to equipment suppliers.
